


Pictures of Utopia

by mussings_over_tea



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/F, Falling In Love, M/M, Obsession, Pegging, Pining, Relationship Study, Violence, continuation of STRANGE ANIMALS METAPHORS, i'm laughing at this tag but i tried to keep it, so much pining, that might be also, that's how he pines IN VIOLENCE, yep PINING MEN GETS PEGGED, you know the drill with this boy and him craving that mineral
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:08:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22535254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mussings_over_tea/pseuds/mussings_over_tea
Summary: A study of Nick's complicated feelings for Señor Nadal in between Wimbledon 2014 and Melbourne 2020.
Relationships: Nick Kyrgios/Ajla Tomljanović, Nick Kyrgios/Eugenie Bouchard, Nick Kyrgios/Rafael Nadal, Nick Kyrgios/The Bouchard Sisters
Kudos: 9





	Pictures of Utopia

*

He thinks the need has always been there. Before he could recognize it as such. Put a name to it. Maybe he never learned to. Or was brave enough to. Before.

But it was always there, in his blood, inseparably underlying any other feelings he might have had for tennis ever.

Something hot and boiling inside. Hissing or growling. A reptile with scales, jaws and claws daring to hunt for a bull. Wanting to taste its blood. To see red. Red like rage. Red like passion. Red like war. Red like aching wounds cleaned afterwards.

At first it was competitiveness he took it for. Playing this titan of tennis, when his eyes look so young and warm, like he’s not ancient old warrior from Spartacus army. Nick has that moment of reflection when Nadal returns his gaze over the net, before the photo is taken. But strange almost innocent genuiety never returns, when Nadal transforms into the creature of steps stomping like hooves, growls echoing like hunger and strength overwhelming like the ground quakes every time he hits the ball.

The grass feels good under his feet. Like aiding him in this showdown against the gladiator. There is harmony. There is surface recognition and moving in sync with all the variables, making his balls land exactly how he wants them, making his racket respond like wired with instincts alert inside him. He thinks this is where he realized he loves grass, too. And maybe the fact he played his slam match against Nadal on this surface and he won his slam match with him also had something to do with it.

But this will come with that need recognition.

Later.

Half-way through the match, so completely locked in, he doesn’t feel tired, he feels like there is a hum inside him wiring him on like he’s a steel engine in the heart of a flying machine. He thinks of the white they are wearing. How the red of spilled blood would soak up into the material. With patterns. An emblem. Nick somehow knows he won’t be able to read it. Not yet. But the marks on the whiteness he would leave result in the hum becoming purr of a reptile that has grown wings now. And is soaring.

Soaring to victory. Claiming it with claws. Wanting to scratch the whiteness with them, too. But Nadal has that look again. Something gentle. And pure. Something pinning Nick down. Leaving him transfixed. The bull is under his heel now. It should submit in pleading, in humility. Instead Nick gets a brush of a hand and mouthed gratitude and respect.

It enrages him. He tries to chase the bull, to corner him in the locker rooms. Leave the marks. Read the marks this time. What they would say.

But Nadal’s in the hurry. Running away, defeated? Or moving on to face on another challenge?

“Good game, kid. Congrats,” Nadal passes him on the corridor (Nick takes a wisp of fresh shower and something spicy, something that makes the reptile in him grunt in thirst) and there’s a brief touch of his hand on Nick’s sweated skin, before Nadal is gone.

He’s fuming in the shower. Stands in the water much longer than he probably needs to. He was supposed to be the one to leave his marks. Not the other way round.

He touches his forearm where he thinks something red and hot is boiling. Like a brand. The reptile inside him is hissing words. But Nick doesn’t hear them. Not yet.

He’s not a kid. And he will show him. He will chase him. He will have him under his heel.

*

“How does it feel to win with Nadal?” the reporters keep on asking him. Same questions over and over again. It’s either about why he’s playing with tricks, why he’s refusing to the next time, and they always ask about Nadal. Like even they, themselves, seal the connection. Christen it. His tennis is bound to him facing Nadal on court.

He goes through to the quarters. But it’s not the same. He loses to Raonic. Goes down swinging. Fights till the end. The grass still shows him the way. The grass still lifts him up. But there is no fire in him left. Maybe he burned out. Maybe it was extinguished in him. Because there is no spark to ignite him anymore into that whirling steel machine. The reptile in him is dormant now. Missing the smell of spices. Dreaming of blood spilled on white. Of marks freshly pouring down on skin in red, red, red.

_Like the pieces fall together. Like I know why I’m here. Like I have the purpose, I know the reason. Like I shouldn’t be doing anything else but this. Always._

He thinks of saying, whenever they ask. Blatant. True. Shocked at how much the words fill him up. He almost touches the forearm to that. Like sensing the warmth there.

The seal. Where his touch was.

“I mean, it’s obviously amazing. It’s unreal,” he replies instead. General words. Truthless. Acted out like lines of a script.

The reptile inside calls him out, hissing out phrases Nick really wanted to say. Nick pretends does not understand.

Not yet.

*

The reptile, of dragon scales and jaws of a shark, goes to sleep for the time being. And Nick gets himself lost in motion with tennis, with that spark in him barely shimmering in the darkness of insecurities, confusion, anger and frustrations. He lies to them all, to the media, even to people on tour, that whenever he’s off court he avoids tennis as much as he can. And watches NBA instead.

No.

It’s not true.

He watches matches.

He watches _him_. Whenever he can. He does, to rekindle the spark, to remember the feeling. That need unnamed that made him think he belongs and he’s never belonged anywhere more but out there, chasing him, trying to draw blood, trying to leave his marks.

He thinks he’s learned his patterns by heart now. His moves. The strategy.

“That’s super Nadalesque of you, Nick? Interesting,” Matt once comments, when they prepare for the local doubles tournament and Nick maybe never realized how much him studying Nadal’s shots got engraved in his muscle memory (or on the surface of his heart?).

“Serve volley is too risky. One-two punch solves a lot much quicker and I’ve got enough force behind my forehand for that,” he mumbles, apologetically, as if justifying himself. As if he’s doing something he shouldn’t, maybe.

“That you do. And as long as you don’t have to run, right, mate?” Matt is judging him with a racket butt and Nick grunts back smiling “Shut up,” hastily trying to get them back into the game. Feeling exposed. Feeling self-aware.

The need inside him becoming more substantial. If he looks close enough he thinks he may be even able to see what the markings made of blood on Nadal read.

He doesn’t. Not yet.

*

The spark turns to fully raging fire whenever they meet on court. It feels like it’s been years, before they do. The dragon growls back to life, starved for such a long time, the need inside bursting like a volcano.

In Rome, Nick can’t touch him. Can’t have the red markings on clay. The bull rules here and there is no crossing these grounds. There is no killing the king.

No check mate for him.

Nadal passes him on the corridors, and renews his own markings, by touching his forearm where Nick expects there should already be a tattoo in the shape of his hand sizzling like fresh iron brand. Like he never left. Like they were just facing each other. “Better luck next time, Nick,” and he’s gone. Just like that. Leaving spark. Leaving heat. Rekindled. That manages to last till next time.

He’s not _kid_ anymore. It’s his name, Nadal uses. He remembers. He knows.

He will.

The reptile of dragon scales inside him purrs content. But Nick refuses to read the red markings still.

*

His competitiveness on court comes and goes. That spark feeding growling creature inside. Making him roar in triumph, or grunt in effort and passion. But it always stays with Nadal. The creature is never dormant then. Nick thinks it can even recognize him by smell by now. Whenever they have matches together (not enough, too few, he’s starved, the creature in him too) and Nadal joins him in the players hall, there’s a wisp of fire, blood and soil after rain making Nick want to whimper or growl, which he covers with a cough or swallows on desperately.

His focus is sharp. He can see brighter colours, Nadal all yellow, or golden, or both, like the sun, scorching hot. The only focal point in Cincinnati, he circles his orbit, wanting to get swallowed, wanting to crash with it and be consumed. But he wants to leave his markings, too, running not yellow, not gold, but crimson red. He’s wearing his shirt proudly. A provocation. An Invitation. Or a foreboding.

_Come and get me. So that I could sink my teeth in you. So that I could taste your submission. So that I could know you’re mine._

Nick gasps under the greedy growl of a creature.

That’s what the markings were saying all along. Rivers of blood weeping of belonging or ownership or both?

It makes him weak for a moment. Exposed. Scared. Vulnerable. But he keeps it together. Or draws more determination from the realization, serving his unreturnable balls and making compact, unbreakable returns.

And so he has him under his heel again, the bull submits to the dragon, but his gaze remains fire, like a statement of it being fleeting, temporary, or never really being a thing. A delusion only. Nadal is gone before Nick can taste the moment, inhale it, keep it inside to cherish. Like he couldn’t last time, because the reptile then was barely a hatchling, the need just taking seeds.

Nadal is gone, before Nick can leave his marks for everyone to read now. Rushes to the lockers in a defeat, proud, stomping, but withdrawing.

No. Nick won’t let him. It’s been so long. He’s perched. The creature inside him rattles the cage to be set free. So he does and chases the bull once more.

Nick finds him packing up, freshly showered, ready to throw his generic, formulaic words of respect, ready to leave Nick’s life for how long this time? (Till he thinks he stops feeling burning under his skin where his fingers were).

“A good win. Good luck for the rest of your time here, Nick,” there’s his name, making him shudder, making him be bold.

So he is.

He’s standing in Nadal’s way as he’s about to go (run, rush, escape him. No. He’s won. He wants to taste it).

“How long does it stay with you?” he asks, unmoving in the doorway, looking intensely into Nadal’s confused, brown eyes (gentle, warm, unlike these fiery beacons from across the court trailing your every move to hunt you down, to pin you down).

“Huh?” the confusion has a sound now and under humming tension there’s something soft in Nick coming to life, too.

“The match. When we play. Do you remember it afterwards?” the words spill out, not like Nadal’s blood. But Nick’s. He thinks he’s standing there, bare and open for Nadal to see everything.

The markings turn from _mine_ to _yours_.

He doesn’t move. Fights urges to reach out. To touch. To tell him with his fingers leaving prints this time.

“Do I watch it again? Yes. Always. Need to know what I have to improve, no?,” Nadal brings himself closer. Nick’s entire body responds. High-wired. Connected. Bound. “To beat you next time, no?” Nadal says like he promises and Nick hanged upon the words with the creature’s appetite.

Next time. Huh.

“You wish,” Nick replies, not moving from Nadal’s way. Waiting. Hoping. Thinking he knows what’s coming.

“Oh, I know,” it does. His hand on Nick’s forearm, like renewing the vows, a seal, now he knows of what. Of belonging. Of ownership. Of both. And he’s moving Nick aside, going past him.

The warmth remains. Again. For Nick to cherish. Or for Nick to curse. The words stay inside, with that spark inside him slowly dying down for the rest of the tournament. (He loses in the final. Of course, he does.)

_I remember for a long time. I remember till next time. Whenever we meet._

He swallows them deep, to hide them. Because they are not threats. They are confessions.

*

The first time this lucid, conscious thought appears in his head, sharp, piercing, like a dagger is when they are on their holiday in Croatia.

Ajla’s taking off her tunic, revealing red swimming suit. She’s tanned and golden-skin and so beautiful: athletic, physical but soft and silky like honey. He instantly wants to reach for her to feast, to bask in her strength and vitality, too. She settles herself on a blanket, on a beach they’d come to the first day (she had to practically drag him from bed, at ungodly hour, which was 10am to which he mumbled disgruntled and offended, “Yeah, exactly, middle of the night, babe, like, what are you doing dragging me to sunbath in the middle of the night, huh?”).

Of course, she did. Of course, she didn’t need to try that hard. Nick would do everything for her. The markings on his skin show it to anyone, to everyone, to the whole world. There are no other markings there. Just her. And in this ink it is written whom he belongs with.

She’s rubbing sunscreen on her arms and her stomach, her profile encompassed by the golden aura of an afternoon sun when it hits him. The shape of her nose, her distinctive cheekbones, maybe even contour of her lips and eyebrows.

Fuck.

It hits him, thought he has no right to remember that well. He has no right to have that other face committed to his memory, like it’s something familiar, like it’s something he would recognize anywhere. Like it’s _his_.

Fuck. It hits him and knocks the breath off his lungs completely. Because it feels like something crawling from the depths of his consciousness. Not something random. Not something violent. It’s like you remember something you were supposed to recall before but it was hidden from you then. And all of a sudden you know, and it’s this epiphany and it usually comes with the sense of relief.

This epiphany does not. Fuck. The fact he reconises these features in the face of his girlfriend he was maybe considering proposing to does taste like something ugly and slimy in his throat when he tries to swallow. The way he makes the connection. She reminds him of him. Not the other way round.

Jesus.

“Why are you staring, Nick? Is there something on my face?” she asks, as he sobers from the spiral of consuming him truths.

“As in apart from your face?” he beams, voice hoarse, that realization inside his throat still stuck there, cheap distractions not coming across as they should.

“Charmer. You’re not getting out of that afternoon training today, so don’t even try. Now, do my back, yeah?” and she hands him the lotion, moving so that she’s sitting with her back to him.

When he touches her skin, the honey brown patches under his fingers bring an afterthought that roots itself deep inside his skull and blossoms or festers for a long time later.

_Would their life be like that, too? Could their life be like that, too?_

And the need this stirs back from dormancy feels like he can’t breathe all of a sudden.

@

It happens more and more often, now. Once the connection clicked. Once it embedded itself beneath the surface of his skull or on the surface of his heart.

The thoughts reoccur. The what ifs. In which Ajla becomes a replacement. In which she is an imposter. Jesus fucking Christ.

When she motivates him to work, to go on court with her, to give his all. He never goes easy on her and she’s strong, she’s so fucking devoted to physical work, but she can’t keep up with the aggression, the ferocity he comes to life with on court. He’s not entirely sure whether it’s always been there in him or the creature once awakened by the smell of the bull can’t be satisfied with anything but that dance, the corrida between them. So whenever they train together, he feels restless, he feels ravenous, unappeasable.

All these ridiculous details of everyday life they share (coffee or tea? Songs skipped on the radio? What’s the usual in a local diner? Singing in the shower or humming to brushing teeth? Eating by the table or on the sofa? Snoring? Talking in the sleep?), fuck, the thoughts race, swirl and make him draw parallels constantly. Make him wonder. Ask questions. And be bitter and frustrated with not knowing the answers. Never being allowed to?

And he feels rotten. Like he’s cheating on her. Like he’s eating breakfasts with someone else, watching stupid Netflix films wrapped around someone else, playing for every ball during their training sessions with someone else. And finally making love to someone else.

And so, this is the final straw. That pushes him over the edge later on. Into destruction and oblivion.

He’s gripping her thighs, wrapped solid, strong, muscled around him. She’s glorious, golden, sweaty, encompassing above him, around him, inside him, when she takes him in deeper, rocks herself on him with nails scratching his chest, lips sighing his name like something safe, something familiar, something to trust herself with completely. He leaves fingerprints on the skin of her thighs, digging in higher, to her hips, to pull her deeper, to feel her more. And then he remembers. Or senses. The markings awakening the dragon, belonging to someone else, drawing him in, to dream, to hope, to ache. To have them renewed. And to leave his own.

And so she speaks with his voice, as Nick imagines it, as Nick yearns for, when she moans, voice breaking. “So good, so good, Nick,” and he doesn’t manage to stop himself on time from this free fall into desperation when he flips them over and fucks into her in fever, in abandon, to clutch the mirage of his face as if it could be with him coming apart in Nick’s arms. With him coming apart, being Nick’s.

He spills thinking of him taking him all in, clutching to his skin, pulling him in, closer and the realization that the voice whispering his name is not his makes the creature inside him roar in pain and he doesn’t recognize himself when he murmurs to Ajla’s neck. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, baby.”

“What are you talking about, Nick?” she tries to hold his face, make him look at her, but he can’t let her see the truth. She deserves more than to see this insatiable creature hungry for something else. Wanting something else.

He’s rushing under the shower, to cleanse himself of lies or yearnings? To shed scales of a liar. To drown the beast.

But it doesn’t go away. It never goes to sleep anymore. He’s always subjected to the purr inside him humming the curse that drives him mad, furious, scared and ashamed. You’re _his, his, his, his_.

@

So when Bouchard does the karaoke with him during the US Open players’ party and there’s that teasing invitation in her smirking eyes and bold words on her lip-glossed mouth. “Wanna take that duet to my room, Kyrgios?”

He does. Because he’s been cheating on Ajla since the very beginning and Genie looks nothing alike. The rest of the girls that follow look nothing alike. And it’s clean (anything but), uncomplicated (but hurting, but wrong) and he can pretend, cling to denial, when Ajla walks out of his life, taking all the delusions, all the what ifs, all the pretences he’s been using her for. He can pretend it brings relief. It brings salvation and puts the creature back to sleep.

*

In Prague he ignores the rumbles, he acts like he doesn’t hear the purring or the whining of the dragon inside. He’s surrounded by boys anyway, plenty of distractions and they can stay away from Team Europe if they want, considering the compound has been divided into red and blue zones for each.

He’s inseparable with Jack. They blast their music, play their table tennis with John, do PlayStation and drag Mac for truth or dare rounds that usually end up with someone being naked and dancing to George Michael on the table.

He sees him on court, of course. Fuck. His whole body feels wired. It’s different in doubles, when there is no intimacy of face-to-face combat, no tightness of combat then. Like instead of using fists, they wear rubber gloves. There is no contact, no connection, no closeness Nick aches for, even if he pushes it aside. And pretends he doesn’t. Not even winning over him like that bears a familiar pre-taste of possibilities. To have him submit under the dragon’s heel.

To have him. Have him. Just, to have him.

There’s envy, too. To be on the other side. To have this synchronicity in experience, this owning each other’s space so well, to guide and to lead, to guard and to protect in perfect balance. He’s here to have fun, first and foremost. And they always do with Jack. They have great chemistry, there’s partnership and great anticipation. There’s feeling good and safe and loose. Off court and on it. There’s being a team, pals, finishing each other’s sentences, sharing the same music taste, ordering the same burgers. Yep, it’s all there. But when he watches Nadal cover Federer’s flank, when he sees them talk strategy, cheer for each other in awe and affection, combined. When he sees Nadal, even though younger, take charge on court and Federer giving in willingly, in trust, in complete devotion, when he sees this win them point after point, the growl inside him feels so loud he’s grateful that noise in the arena never stops. And no one can hear him. Or _it_. The creature. This almost violent need in him, to mark, to claim, to have. This with him. Him. Just him.

And then after effectively avoiding any chance of too direct contact, he walks on Nadal in the gym. When almost having this, this chase, this thrill on court, but not, when clinging to pretences and feigning blindness and ignorance to this creature inside him practically roaring in yearning now.

Sweat-covered skin with muscles straining under the surface. Taunt body shaped through hard-work and dedication. An instrument of valour and triumph and glory. Relentless hammer Nick fancied to wield. To have. He almost bursts out laughing, but he’s afraid if he does, he won’t stop, he will laugh, manically, until he cries and then anger will follow and he will tear this place to pieces.

Out of injustice. Out of envy. Out of want.

The doors release a hissing sound when he enters, up to this point watching him over the glass, unreachable, unavailable monument of perfection he wants to mark with cracks of weaknesses and vulnerability. Nadal acknowledges his presence with a curt nod but doesn’t stop his later lunges, always committed, absolutely made of work and fitness. A tank top he wears is outrageously low cut, showing the intensity he puts into moulding himself into this weapon of efficiency, but showing physicality, patches of gold, tan skin, robust vitality too. Nick feels his throat going dry, like when he would look at Ajla and wanted to feast on strength and sweetness of her all the time. And now he’s haunted by the realization that it was merely an echo of this current want in the end. A replacement. An imitation. Jesus Christ. He digs his fingers into his hand. The dragon grunts.

“Any hints on how to defeat Federer?” he manages to speak without a break in the voice. Stands there, dumbstruck but acting cool. Trying not to devour every tremble of muscles on Nadal’s skin with his eyes.

Nadal chuckles, his breathing even, though he continues to lift the weighs like it’s almost effortless. The dragon grunts louder, but Nadal words cover it. “In a decider, Nick? First mistake, don’t show the opponent how desperate you are.”

This causes almost physical reaction. The dragon rattles the cage inside, makes him want to pounce, to ruin this composure, to fight the bull to the death or to make him yield. God. He should leave. He thinks he can smell sweat, he can smell blood and it makes his mouth water. “So, no price on the info, then?” he still says. Raw and exposing.

Nadal stops and lifts himself up from a crouching position. Assessing Nick from the raised eyebrow. Light, not fierce like across the net. Nick misses that other gaze more. Fuck. “You trying to corrupt me, Nick? Is this what this is about?”

Nick snorts, trying not to take in Nadal in his full glory, wet, straining, now breathing a bit louder. The scales seem to be real on him. His skin is tight and stretched and itching. He mumbles. “That would be the day,” and then he adds, this time weak and pushed by hunger to these means, trailing his eyes up and down Nadal’s body, suggestively. “But if there was a price, what would be yours? If you could have anything?”

Nadal remains unaffected, amusement on his face, on his lips, Nick is watching now like a hawk. “Bold declaration, Nick. You say you can give me anything.”

“Maybe,” he brings himself closer and when reaching for the weights Nadal left on the floor he bows low, almost goes to his knees, not tearing his eyes away from Nadal’s face. The dragon inside whines. Starving now. “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying,” he continues, now raising up, not breaking their eye contact, much closer now than he was before.

Nadal is steel. Just like he is when he gets broken on court. Just like he is when he loses. When cornered, like he is now. “What did I tell you about desperation, Nick? That’s a one. Never a good price for anything,” he starts making room for Nick on the mat, trying to head for the door, reaching for a towel nearby.

The dragon makes him do it. The dragon is a sentient being now, ruling all his instincts. He stops Nadal with his hand on his forearm, soaks up the heat, the steel, the wetness. The dragon is sated. The dragon belongs. “Maybe it’s loyalty to the team. Maybe it’s willingness to do everything for them?” He sounds like he’s beseeching. For Nadal to know. To know him? He breaks the contact. It’s not how it works. How the seal is renewed. The fingerprints on his skin tingle.

Nadal doesn’t comply. But doesn’t leave his space either. “Good. That’s good motivation. Use this, Nick,” and then he’s leaning closer to find himself taking Nick’s entire vision (Nick thinks in this moment, seeing his freckles, seeing laugh lines around is eyes, seeing the multishades of gold and brown in his eyes, that it never was any different in his life, Nadal took up the entire space of it anyway). “Use your serve and serve on his forehand,” he whispers, with a finger on his mouth, like sharing a secret and goes past Nick.

Just like that.

Leaving the dragon feverish after getting the taste.

“But you didn’t name your price?” Nick says after him, pathetically. The dragon has no growls. It only has whimpers, now.

“Wouldn’t you want to know, Nick?” is all he gets in return, grabbing the weights, and almost overtraining himself there, restless, itchy, desperate.

Wanting.

And not having. 

@

He still loses to Federer. Again. Watches Nadal throw himself into Federer’s arms. Where he doesn’t belong. Where he never will. Because they are miles apart. Because this is not a fairty tale in which a boy wishes on a star and gets it. A boy is not even a boy. A boy is an angry dragon. A dragon doesn’t even want. A dragon rages to have.

He tastes salt on his mouth. Of humiliation and shame. Of anger boiling too. Inside there’s only blood of a wounded dragon that hasn’t known proper food for years now.

@

After the official part of Prague is over, they hit the clubs. He picks up girls with blond hair and pale complexion, he picks up girls that look nothing alike, and he loses himself in shallow, hedonistic oblivion of warm skins and willing bodies.

He doesn’t even know their names, so he chokes on that name when he comes in a fucking bathroom stall, like he’s so desperate, like he’s so pathetic.

They don’t even know who he is anyway, so it won’t matter. Neither of it will. Just as it won’t appease the hunger. Just as it won’t fill up the ache.

*

And then there’s Beijing and he falls to pieces, no longer capable of wrestling with the creature inside him growing furious, uncontrollable, absolutely wild. Taking over.

The roof is closed. The conditions are fast. The ball bounces gloriously off his racket. And he’s been cruising through the entire thing straight to the final, fueled by the prospect of making the bull heel to him. The same way he did in Cincinnati. As Nick’s been building his own kingdom on hard court for Nadal to submit to him there, always, from now on, always.

But nothing works. He makes so many errors, there’s restlessness inside him bursting onto the outside in erratic decisions and desperate shot making. There’s growl inside his head pushing out everything else but this screaming want.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

To conquer. To claim. To have. To keep.

So, in the end nothing works, because it’s not about tennis. Maybe it hasn’t been about tennis with Nadal for a long, long while.

Nadal stays fierce, untouchable behind his fortress of competence and efficiency. The dragon wails. The dragon is now a clumsy, small, crawling lizard that means nothing beneath the hooves of the bull.

“Is how it is in tennis, no? Better luck next time,” Nadal tells him in the locker room. Fucking dares to get there, with confetti shining in his hair, Nick’s been pining to reach out for, to pull out, to touch, touch, touch, during the entire ceremony. And he offers him same, general, meaningless words he would anyone else. He already did use on him. Dares to treat him like another player on the long list of guys he stomped on with his undefeated ferocity to reach his goals.

Nick’s been sitting on a bench, wanting to shower (to cleanse himself, to silence himself, the creature whimpering inside), wanting to run from this cage, wanting to disappear. And Nadal comes here, to tighten the leash, to push the dagger in, to make him feel completely bare when bleeding out for this bull. The dragon turned to slithering, slimy, helpless lizard.

“It’s not about fucking tennis, jesus,” he mumbles and it sounds so whiny, and it sounds like he’s a boy hissing like a lizard instead of breathing fire and fury like the beast protecting its heart, shielding itself from harm, from being so fucking exposed.

Nadal is packing the rest of his things by the lockers, not even sparing him a glance, spilling his general pep talk to a meaningless name Nick is for him. Another one checked off the list to greatness. The dragon wants to roar but it comes out like a shudder, like a cry, so he holds it back, chokes on the ugliness of it.

“Is about the umpires? The mistakes been there, always. It’s their unforced errors, Nick. Think of it like us overdoing shots. And just, let go,” he’s folding clothes, thorough and neat, with his obsessive focus, like he’s still in the zone, like he’s still driving himself forward in this campaign of total dominance on court. Nick’s shaking, he clutches the edges of a bench, till his knuckles turn white. He wants to claw, tear, he wants to leave his marks. Write in blood the only truth that matters. But it doesn’t. He lost. He’s a lizard under heels of a bull. The truth gets revealed as something else entirely again. It’s not _mine, mine, mine_. It’s _his, his, his_.

Fucking Nadal telling him to let go. To let fucking go. Because he doesn’t matter. He’s just a reptile to be smashed. Like he was today.

He’s moving, with purpose, few strides of his legs now made of muscles, instinct and gravity. He’s still on the leash, though, that’s leading him straight to the hand pulling strings. Nadal turns around to see him approach. He’s a mass of unyielding, unbridgeable power. He’s all blue. Something old, something new. Something borrowed, something blue. The creature in him is in control now and Nick reaches for this monument made of bronze. Hand leaving marks on the forearm where the seal of their bond is.

“You really don’t know? You really don’t know what it’s all about?” and he’s asking, demanding, putting himself even closer within this radius of magnetism around Nadal. His eyes peering into that warm but alerted brown. His eyes tracing these lips. God. The hunger in him is physical. Is alive.

Nick thinks about what could happen. What should happen. Nick thinks about appeasing this hunger. Being bold. Being outrageous. That’s who he is. Nick thinks about shutting the creature down once and for all. Drink confirmation from this mouth, to push this body against the lockers and find release there, to tear the blue, to reveal gold of glory and valour and to feast on it, like he deserves, like he conquered it before, like it was his, his, his. Go to his knees to heel for him too but then sink deep inside him, to find belonging, to find everything he’s been chasing after, to make Nadal feel like he always does. Like Nadal never leaves from underneath his skin, from the very core of him.

Nadal’s looking back now. Like maybe he sees the images, he understands the images. He knows, it’s inevitable. This is what must happen. His eyes on Nick’s lips feel physical. Like it already is happening. Nick’s fingers dig deeper into the material of Nadal’s sweatshirt, hoping he will tattoo his presence, like Nadal always does his.

But then the words follow. The words that mean something more than on the surface. “No, Nick. I don’t know what it’s all about,” with Nadal’s body moving out of Nick’s reach, but with a trace of his gaze still tingling his lips. He’s rejected, but he’s allowed. Nadal doesn’t look like he’s walking away. Nadal looks like he’s running.

Before he does, Nick promises after him. “You will. You will know.”

The creature’s still hungry but for the time being it’s satisfied with the scraps.

*

He goes into dormancy. He and his dragon do. Into pretences. Into deep winter sleep, where hunger can’t touch them, where yearning can’t either.

Until Acapulco. Where draw puts them together again. Nick pretends he doesn’t see the possibility, doesn’t fight his battles to get there at all cost necessary. Doesn’t hear the rumble from within that more and more starts to sound like a cry. Raw and needy.

He parties a lot. Till wee hours, watching the sun rise on a beach, fucking exhausted, but never to the point of making the creature sleep again. This time he can’t find a replacement that will look anything but. The bodies are warm, strong and bronze-like. Brown-haired, brown-eyed, athletic. It’s too close. It’s too revealing. He still gives in. The night before he drinks too much, disassociates in his hotel room, watching people in his bed lose themselves in mindless fucking like over the glass, like over the distance, moans, sighs, wet slaps reaching him with delay. He’s drifting in between the state of dream and awake. He thinks he sees him. Eyes warm, eyes concerned. Hands strong but mending. A palm is touching his face. He leans to it. He feels like he’s never had this. Tenderness like this that burns, leaves his skin affected. Leaves his skin transformed.

_What are you doing to yourself?_

The voice sounds like his. Nick nuzzles the palm, tries to learn the sensation by heart. Doesn’t have any point of comparison. They never touched. They never were this.

Fuck. It hurts. The ache surpassed hits him with all the strength of denial he keeps it under.

_To us. You don’t want me. You don’t want us._

Someone is saying. He is. In this vision. With his gestures, pulling Nadal closer. So that they could kiss. He thinks there’s nothing he needs more in this life than to kiss him now.

They don’t. There’s a warm breath with a challenge or a plea echoing where this solid presence seemed to be. _Bring your tennis. And there will be us._

He chases people from his room away the moment he gets round, suddenly lucid, suddenly filled with purpose. There’s not an ounce of exhaustion in him. The alcohol feels like burned out by that longing that is the very essence of him. The purpose is clear. He has a match to play, a battle to win, a bull to conquer, a hunger to satisfy.

@

He tears, he bites, he scratches, he leaves all the marks he can on Nadal during that night. He’s relentless, demanding, he’s loud and never goes away. He follows his every step till the finish line and roars victoriously, roars with fury to bring him to heel, and regrets, because it’s still not the way he wants it. But he will take it. He will take everything.

Nadal’s look of rage but panic, delicious, nourishing. The feel of his wet hand, rushed and moving away, like he’s running, again, from the inevitable. The boos, the yells of contempt and rejection fuel him. Because he drew blood and the crowd deemed Nadal immortal, unbreakable. But he isn't. And Nick wrote on this body made of divine bronze.

_Mine._

Or so he deludes himself. He’s rushing to the lockers to catch him. To sink his teeth deeper into this meal of submission. Nadal’s finished packing (running, still running) and is ready to leave (escape). Bright colours distracting blind eyes from seeing how he’s affected, how there are cracks on this monument. Left by Nick.

Nick chuckles and the dragon inside him purrs. “Better luck next time, hmm?” There’s mocking in his voice, taunting Nadal to know, to see. What this is really about, when he’s going past Nick to stop and say.

“I don’t need luck, Nick,” matter-of-factly. Incorrigible. Full of work ethic. It makes Nick sick. He wants to rattle the bull some more.

“To defeat me?” he still thinks he comes across as needy, turning his head to Nadal as they stand side by side and Nick sways closer, longs for more points of contact.

Nadal laughs and it’s like getting a slap on the face. The dragon snaps his jaws. The dragon won’t be offended. The dragon has the bull under his heel and yet the bull is in control. “To play my best tennis,” Nadal states. Something absolute. Something he’s made of. Has always been made of.

Nick grunts, like he mirrors the creature wanting to bite. “Your best tennis was not enough today,” but his hand itches to reach for Nadal’s hand, to brush against his skin, to know if the tenderness from his dream compares.

Nadal’s moving, out of his space, out of his reach, from under his heel (he was never really there). And he tightens the leash with casual and almost cheerful, off-hand parting words. “Enjoy your win, Nick.”

Like he knows it’s not really a win for Nick. Like he knows these scraps he gets cannot tame the appetite.

@  
  


Nick fucks his own fist in the showers afterwards. Thinks about sinking deeper into that heat, feeling strength and steel under his fingers, pliant, to be molded, to be claimed, over and over again. Bites on his own hand to muffle the growls of a starving creature and imagines biting into the crook of that neck, to leave marks, physical marks, not only those on the inside that will make Nadal realise what this is about.

_For I am his, just as he is mine._

And he ignores tears of humiliation that dissolve into water cleansing him from all traces of desperation afterwards.

_Is this what winning feels like?_

*

The media start to pick up on, whatever there is between them. That unnamed feeling of chase, of must have, Nick is driven by.

They call it, a beef. After Acapulco. After he let himself known with the rawness of this desperation. They call it rivalry, petty frustrations. They come up with all these shallows names and labels for what ultimately fuels Nick’s entire tennis.

Ridiculous.

As if you can name it. As if you can put a pin on it and shove it into a box.

It’s a force of nature. It’s unstoppable. It burns bright like wildfire and nothing can stop it.

He plays along though. Leads them astray. Make them think their empty, shallow slogans. Calls Nadal salty. Calls him a bitter loser.

He is. He’s a coward. He’s the one running away now. He’s the one in denial that it’s all about tennis between them. As if they don’t leave marks on each other. As if they don’t stay under each other’s skin long after leaving the premises of whichever arena they’re playing.

A coward. A pretender.

Oh, but he will know. He will understand. He will never be free of this knowledge.

And so he does.

Acapulco’s aftermath leaves Nadal in shambles, looking for his form back. Falling to pieces, in the rest of the season leading up to Paris. He’s back only for his kingdom of clay, to reclaim the throne. But the dragon inside Nick purrs in satisfaction and takes all the credit for the struggles that proceed it.

He does know. He does understand. It, this unnamed connection between them, the media call a beef, the dragon inside Nick growls for like the food it hasn’t had for years and Nadal is calling just tennis, it goes both ways, it binds both of them, into mutuality, into togetherness, into inevitable.

So even being victorious on clay, lifting up these trophies, harbouring thrills, smiles and hopes for the future, Nick thinks that he knows and he carries the markings on the inside.

_Of them._

*

“You should really publish a book with pre-match routine for everyone to be more accepting of this practice, Kyrgios,” Genie’s raising her pint at Nick, with that permanent smirking expression of hers. Nick joins her with his sip of a beer.

He chuckles over the hem of the glass. “Fuck, all these pompous geezers talking about match preparations or what not. You’re either in shape and prepared or not. Evening before the fucking match won’t change anything. Jeez.”

The pub is buzzing with people. Nick’s sure there are media hawks somewhere out here, already reporting on his ignorance and misbehavior. His love for grass season is honestly ungraspable sometimes, considering these events are drenched in pretentiousness, fake purity and stiffness of manners.

He does love this time, London during that time, bursting in green and fresh and warm and tennis anticipation. He thinks he even loves tennis then, like he knows what it means, what it’s about, what it should be about.

And the fact, yet again, he is about to face Nadal during grass season feels like destiny’s justification. Like a message of fate. All those rare times when he can say he loves tennis and he is playing Nadal again.

No. Not loves.

Belongs with, wants nothing else, is fueled by or maybe even defined by.

That’s better.

“Interesting, though. Cos looks like, this has become your routine whenever you play Nadal these days,” Bouchard’s always been sharp. On point. No bullshit kind of a girl. That’s why they hooked up in the first place. This, the ease she has around herself and practically being his mirror reflection, wrapped in attitude and cockiness. And her blond hair, pale skin, blue eyes, making him forget, making him pretend so good. Because, back then, he still did. Pretend. Escape.

Not anymore.

Bouchard was a friend. There were no obligations, no pressure, no expectations for more. They would call each other, whenever. They would meet, play computer games, go for drinks, do karaoke, train together or fuck occasionally. And it was not a big deal to anyone.

No one could serve a replacement anymore. Nothing else could compare to the chase, to the thrill, to that _one day, one time you will know and I will have you._

So, she’s here now, casually sharing that beer with him, but still seeing way too much and making all the right connections.

“Are you planning psychology degree I don’t know about or something?” he comments, seemingly nonchalantly, taking a large gulp of drink though.

He’s thrilled. He’s brimming with excitement. But there’s curiosity and longing that taste like anxiety and impatience. He seeks anesthesia for in alcohol and sex. (It’s not closeness. It’s about purely physical fucking with her. It’s about oblivion of instincts).

“Don’t get defensive, baby. We all have our demons we want to exorcise. I’m very much in it for this exorcism tomorrow. Finally, I can tell whether you wanna kill him or fuck him, or maybe both?” she chuckles while striking the chord like it’s effortless for her. To know. To see. Maybe they are just that similar. Or maybe he’s been that obvious.

“Which one are you betting on now?” he doesn’t deny. There’s no point. He’s not entirely sure he himself knows the answer. He clutches the glass tighter. Afraid of being exposed or finally ready for it.

“We shall see tomorrow, shall we?” she’s wriggling her eyebrows, like it’s a game for her. It is. She doesn’t care. It’s not filling her up to the brink. It’s not in her veins instead of blood spreading all over her body to transform it. Into the creature of forever hunger. He wants to snap at her, angry, offended. But then he clings to relief. She doesn’t realise how big the creature in him grew. How insatiable.

He doesn’t want anyone to know and to see it. But Nadal. Carrying the same beast inside to respond.

“Ready for part two of our pre-match preparation, babe?” there are hands around him, wrapping from behind, with Beatrice’s perfumed breath nuzzling his ear, tearing him away from the hypnotic hum of a dragon getting ready for a hunt. She went shopping and now she’s back with Victoria’s Secret paper bag, smiling wickedly. As much as her plastic mouth allows her to.

Nick wonders how the fuck are these two twins. Genie with her natural beauty, her sharp attitude, her snarky eagerness. And Beatrice – a perfect doll, made of plastic, shallow needs and cliché pretences.

“Uhm, okay, were you guys planning to wear clothes tonight anyway, cos I’m kinda not prepared for the occasion,” Nick eyes the bag provocatively, pulling her closer like on autopilot, his shoulder securing the small of her back like they are in a relationship. Like, they’ve been together for a while. He takes a large gulp of beer, thinking of the possibility. Chocking on it immediately.

Seeking oblivion, that inner peace, has its price.

“Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered,” she purrs to his hair, something dirty, something challenging. A promise. Putting a bag in his hands, like a gift. Like it’s for him.

Oh, fuck.

His forearm tingles. Where fingerprint should be. Where fingerprints fade with time, whenever they are separated. Whenever the fate dares to put them apart. A seal of a promise: _his, mine._

Anything to make it fulfilled.

“I’m all yours then,” he lies, to her pulling him by the hand and Genie follows close-by, whispering to his ear, another promise to be fulfilled.

“Not yet. Soon, lover boy.”

But he’s already taken. But he’s already _his_. Yet, he follows. To forget. To pretend he still can.

@

In the end, it is somewhere in the middle of wanting to kill him and wanting to fuck him, Nick thinks. When he aims another shot with ferocity of scorn and desperation, not to win a point at all, but more, make contact, crashing the walls, drawing the bull out in the open to confront the dragon. To see. To know.

_You’re mine. Just as I am yours._

There’s growl of hunger, never-ending. There’s smell of blood. But there’s also ache and emptiness he knows can be healed. With what he has within his reach and yet across the whole field, miles away.

With _him._

The growls of the dragon break out and are on his tongue, in between his teeth, on his mouth during the entire match. He can’t help it. The creature takes over and goes hunting. Almost succeeds.

He throws a gaze at his box from time to time, to see Genie looking back feverish, eager and wearing this curious, almost manic smirk of hers. Like she has her confirmation. But, of what? What does she think this is? Killing him? Or fucking him? Or both? What’s her answer?

So the dragon almost hunts the bull down.

Almost. What if. Maybe.

That’s all they are built of. Nadal slips away but this time it’s different. He’s raging. He’s on fire. He’s growling back, like a creature lured out to chase the other.

Nick grasps his hand over the net, a brief moment of a show for the media. It’s hot to the touch. Like that fire in him burns so bright and Nick wants to taste it, feel it. From the inside. He wants to sink into this heat to let it consume them. But in the meantime they pretend. Nadal triumphs over a seeming win, as if there are no marks in him. As if Nick did not let the bull roam openly to want to have the dragon, too.

When he heads for the lockers, the feeling of that skin on his still fresh, there’s almost serenity inside him. Of purpose. Of content. Of a good hunt.

He’s waiting in the corner. He’s going to be eating well today.

@

Nadal doesn’t see him, when he enters the locker room. He doesn’t smell him either, which causes a grunt of dissatisfaction inside, spreading with a buzz under his skin. He put cracks on these walls, he did, slowly stripping Nadal of the pretences, of denial. But it was all there. A defense mechanism. Pretending it, all of what they have, is not there. That it’s just tennis.

He gets to his locker and starts taking off his clothes, standing with his back to Nick, wet, strained, exhausted. Everything Nick took from him still buzzes inside him and the lack of which is visible in a way Nadal stands, in a way he’s shaking (adrenaline, rage, relief, emotion, all of this mingled together? Like it was the final. Like their every match seems to be). Then he stops, chest bare, shorts still on, as if he’s examining himself. The markings they both left on each other. He touches his abdomen, where Nick made contact, where Nick managed to physically affect him, even if the entire tennis he plays against Nadal has always been about that. But that time it felt almost intimate. Violent intimacy. Yes. That’s them. 

“Is there a mark?” he lets himself known, voice low, rumbling, like not entirely his own. Like he’s let the creature speak for himself.

Nadal turns around abruptly. If he’s shaken, he doesn’t show it. Face steeled into a mask of focus and pragmatism. Nick stifles the growls of demands, of want.

_Show yourself. Stop running from this. From us._

“It don’t matter. But you could hurt someone on court. You could hurt the kids,” Nadal’s still touching a place where a scar should be. A seal of _them_. Nick’s moving. He wants to see. He wants to feel it too.

“I didn’t. And I wouldn’t. I was aiming. And I got the aim I wanted. And I wanted to hurt you, not anyone else on court,” and he’s there, crowding Nadal from behind, inhaling fire, sweat, earth and all the elements of that raging war between them. “Can I see?” he leans closer, to whisper it to Nadal’s ear. Gentle. Warm. Like a love confession.

“Nothing to see, Nick,” he’s moving and facing Nick. Expression betraying nothing. But his eyes do. His eyes burn, like they do on court, with vicious purpose, with pinning down strength of will. The bull did not go to sleep. The dragon hasn’t waited in vain.

“Hmmm,” he hums, the sound hoarse and almost inhuman, even if he’s a picture of serene and friendly on the outside. The dragon wails for food. “Not on the outside, it doesn’t,” he wants to touch, he wants to trace the markings. Trace this entire body as _his, his, his_. But he doesn’t. He keeps himself close, eyes peeled to this fiery gaze. Challenging Nadal to dare. To give him permission.

“There’s nothing to show,” Nadal repeats stubbornly. He’s still fighting. He’s still wrapped in denial. Nick wants to tears it off him, with the rest of his walls, with his entire skin. He leans closer and says to Rafa’s ear.

“Remember what you told me?” what follows is more of a breath and a tongue, than words. “Let go, Rafa,” he’s daring all the way and he uses the name. Like he earned the right. Like they really are intimate in this violence of theirs.

And there’s a moment they are so close, Rafa leans his head, like chasing Nick’s breath, like wanting to feel the words on his mouth. And that’s the closest to them kissing, Nick thinks and he yearns, so much, he didn’t realise how much, how he wants them to. There’s rage and fire and war between them but in the face of kissing his mouth, he’s defenseless and the dragon becomes a sleepy kitten, seeking affection. He parts his lips to drink from these moments.

“Nick,” God, he feels it, more than he hears it. On his mouth.

Yeah?” he responds like drunk, eyes closed, seeking the moment, consuming it all into himself. That almost a kiss. That almost confirmation. _Mine._

“Leave,” follows like a slap. Like Nadal’s personal punch, a response to that ball from before. Intimacy dissolves into violence for they are always toeing the line.

The dragon whimpers, Nick swallows on the sound desperately, not to let it onto the outside. Not to let the bull see the wound it applied. But Nadal doesn’t move away. There’s daze on his face, too, when Nick looks, struggling to hide ache and anger intertwined.

“I want to get changed,” he hears from the distance, because there’s muffled sound of white noise inside him. Hum turning to regular growl or the dragon mourning.

“Did you mean you want to hide. Fucking run,” Nick puts distance between them, to retreat, back to the cave, to nurse on his wounds. To lick on the blood drawn together, maybe he will find a taste of him there, somehow. “Fucking coward,” he hisses, bleeding and furious, the distance between them making him slip into the suffocating dark of the cave. Scared so lashing out.

“I don’t know what you doing, Nick. I don’t know what this is,” Nadal points between them, like there’s visible thread there, and it’s crimson red and it binds them together, forever, for the end of days. And he acts like he still doesn’t see it. And he acts like all he wants is to cut it. “And I don’t really care. I care about tennis. That’s all,” he repeats his slogans, voice flat, voice robotic. Like formulaic phrases in English he was taught. Hiding. Running away.

The dragon cries. _Come out. Come outside._

Nick doesn’t on the outside. He keeps his voice hoarse. Even harsh. Whipping. “Does it feel like you’ve won today, then?” said close again. A reminder of what they are. What this is. Of marks not seen on the outside, but still there. Deep. Unhealing.

He leaves Nadal standing there for a moment (maybe longer than that). Face a mask of calm, but eyes brimming with flames.

Eyes of a hounded bull.

*

“Fuck. Please. Jesus,” Nick’s moaning, arching on the bed in his hotel room, seeking more of her, making her sink deeper. Genie’s pulling on his hips, responding, like she always knows how, like they are wired, like they understand each other or like they are mirrors. She’s settled behind him, a dildo strapped to her waist and she’s fucking into him with fervor and commitment of someone knowing exactly what medicine he longs for.

“So, I have my answer,” she’s rocking with her hips, her hands on Nick’s chest, stroking, caressing, but nails grazing the sweaty surface so that he could sink into this illusion more. So that he could pretend it’s someone else. She doesn’t mind. She’s a friend but it’s fascinating to see, too. Him, in pieces, like that. Vulnerable. Raw. So fucking desperate. She’s a friend but it turns her on, pulls her into this power play, makes her feel infinite with it. “You want both,” her voice is straining, as she leans forward, deepening the angle, making his long, tanned, lean body shape a bow for her to use even more. Even deeper. Absolutely. “You want everything with him, fuck,” and she mouths to his nape, hands busy around his cock as she continues her thrusts to bring him over the edge. To hear him beg some more. To make him fall apart completely.

“Less psychology, more fucking, please, Gen,” he’s pulling on the sheets, moving with her, eager, pliant and hungry for more. Voice breaking, on moans she wrings out of him.

“Cocky brat,” she chuckles, biting on his ear, but complying. With a new resolve. She rams into him, pulling on his cock simultaneously, assaulting him with sensations, reducing him to a whimpering mess. Helping him forget. Helping him pretend.

“Shame he can’t see you like that. His loss he doesn’t have you like that,” she knows he’s coming more from the words than her cock, biting on the pillow, loud moans around a name muffled. She knows the name he comes with on his mouth by now. Doesn’t need to hear it. And she knows the wetness on his face when she cradles him close afterwards is not sweat.

*

He doesn’t really care. It’s not that he’s been looking for it on purpose. He’s been hanging out at Matt’s with a bunch of mates, as they take turns in Call of Duty and because it’s not in his nature to just wait and do nothing, he ends up fidgeting with his phone impatiently, browsing through social media and that’s where it is. That wedding photo, a rarity, because they are guarding their privacy, they’ve always been guarding their privacy like it’s his shelter, where he goes to seek peace, balance and recharge his undefeatable strength. It’s everywhere, soon, all over the Internet, so it’s not like he would avoid seeing it.

And it’s not like it matters or means anything. This shelter, this familiar, this domesticity in the picture or between them is nothing like that war and red and fury raging between him and Nadal. He puts the bull to sleep for her, he smiles shyly, his eyes get warm and honey-like, there’s protectiveness and softness.

He’s fuming for Nick. He’s got flames of a wildfire, he’s got snarls of a beast, he’s got passion and fury of a demigod.

He doesn’t leave marks on her. He doesn’t carry marks she gave him. He’s not bound by red thread of intimate violence to her. No matter some rituals, no matter the rings.

And yet, Nick throws the phone away and grunts at the crowd that he’s leaving, because this party is lame and he’s not a lame teenager anymore. To which Jordan snorts after him. “Okay, boomer.”

@

When he’s sipping his beer in a nearby pub, looking for familiar faces to seek indifference with, to find oblivion, trance music setting a hypnotic rhythm inside him, he remembers what Genie once said.

_“You know, she kinda looks like you,” while browsing through some pictures, eating nachos they ordered in her hotel room during the US Open._

_He’s watching NBA, sprawled on her bed, like he belongs there. He actually does. Most of his things are in her room anyway. And he spends any free moment here, to recharge, to find surprisingly comforting balance._

_“Is this a sentence leading to some more Victoria’s Secret kink explorations, bro?” he chuckles, clutching on the pillow and playing the point on screen with lots of commentary and occasional shouts of frustration or joy._

_“Do you want to? Cos I’m always up for it!” she turns around from the desk eagerly, her face beaming and scheming, that perfect balance she strikes with her smirking smile._

_“Jesus, so horny,” he throws a pillow at her, which she catches effortlessly and shows him her tongue, with a laughed out. “Spoilsport.”_

_“Anyway, I was talking about Nadal’s missus,” she adds, after a pause._

_He pretends he didn’t hear her for a moment. Muttering enthusiastically coaching tips to the screen. But there’s a flutter inside him. There’s interest rising instantly. A gravity in him responding biologically to that name. He knows she knows he heard her and she continues, relentless, sounding amused too. Like this is all a game to her. It is. Partially. He’s got himself to handle the issues, to endure the longing that comes and goes but never really disappears. She’s still a friend and the only one he shares this with. Or maybe he didn’t even need to share it, because the connection they have (or similarities between them) leave barely any room for secrets._

_“Yeah, the same doe eyes, long eyelashes, great hair, cheekbones to die for and super kissable mouth. She’s a walking Santana song,” and then she has the audacity to play the damn song from her laptop with a daring expression._

_“What are you, a fucking millennial?”he eyerolls at her, trying to turn the volume up on the TV but she’s there, stopping him, swayed from the desk to the bed, dancing to the beat and reaching out for him now._

_“Duh. Millennial and proud. Now, you’re gonna dance with me or I’m kicking your butt out of my room, bro.”_

It stayed with him for a while. This stupid, provocative thing she said, which she probably didn’t even mean. But it conjures up demons from the past. Ugly realizations when he looked into Ajla’s eyes, into that warm brown, when he traced her sharp, stunning features with his finger, when he felt her pinning, focused gaze on himself and knew she’s always been a mirror, she’s been filling up that space inside him longing for something else, wanting someone else.

After shame, comes hope. Naïve. Childish but a flame of it is already burning in the center of his stupid, bleeding heart. Though, it’s cruel. It’s selfish to think that.

Maybe his now wife is a mirror, too. Maybe they’ve been carrying images of each other inside and have been looking for each other in every person in their life?

Fuck.

He’s gulping on his beer now. Swallowing hope. Choking on his naivety.

He wants passion. He wants fire. He wants fury. But he wants soft smiles, laughing eyes, familiarity and safety, too.

He wants everything. And he can’t have. And he won’t have.

The picture only represents it. That naked need inside him, that’s been growing through storms and trials and fires and challenges, and now encompasses everything. And now practically defines him.

He’s laid bare with his vulnerability anyway, so he does look for pretences. That night he chooses a guy, he’s never seen here. Strong, broad, chestnut eyes, and brown hair. Strong cheekbones, too. Looking exactly alike.

“Do we need to go through all the foreplay bullshit?” he purrs to his ear, while they dance, already grinding with purpose.

A guy chuckles in response, mirth and eagerness in these eyes (making Nick ache inside) and already pulls Nick by a hand, warm breath to his neck, a question. “Where to?”

“My car,” he’s leading the way. Head swirling with doubts. The hand in his hand feels wrong. Not big enough. Not strong enough. But a guy has an accent and Nick hopes he’s tipsy enough to pretend. To forget.

“Were you not drinking?” the “r” is prominent and the rebuking tone familiar. Nick clutches the hand more now. Given more reasons to act the part.

“That’s cute, mom ,” he throws it out there, with a wry smile and then adds, smirking. “We’re not gonna be driving it, bro.”

And so he fucks the guy on the backseat of his SUV. He doesn’t even learn his name. He doesn’t need to. He’s calling him by the only name that matters when sinking deep into this warm and tight oblivion, yearning for what ifs, battling the pain of never knowing.

*

Life distracts him. Life takes over. Or the nature does and with it he gets brutally reminded how merciless life can be. Christmas doesn’t feel like Christmas with people losing homes and hastily trying to rebuild their entire life from scratch for the time of family celebrations. Animals disappear, animals suffer, it feels like the end of the world at times with sky burning orange, burning red, every night, like with the wrath of God.

There’s a threat of him being banned from tennis, too. Making him realise that he might care, that he might need it in his life, that tennis is not only about his clashes with titans (about him chasing the bull, about him longing after a man mostly). He can do a lot with tennis. He can help children, he can inspire, he can save lives, rebuild homes. And he can feel joy and purpose in his life in the end.

He gets perspective. He thinks he learns what distance is.

Until they face Spain in January. Until Lleyton tells him he’s not going to be playing Nadal. Until the dragon comes back to life from that winter sleep he slipped back into again, as if Nick moved on, as if Nick was no longer a host of, as if the need inside him became a memory, a shimmer in the background not defining his whole life, his whole tennis. And the dragon starts hissing angrily and possessively: _but he’s mine. (And I am his). And no one, NO ONE can have him out there (can have him in general) but me._

And just the prospect of facing him, again, after such a long long time of absence (after winter sleep lulled him back to false sense of safety or indifference) spreads inside him with ache so long suppressed, and so overwhelming, he feels like he was only half aware the entire time, with his tennis, with his life. Jesus.

The dragon becomes his master again and the ache inside him has a shape of a black hole consuming everything else that by the end of the tournament, even though he’s watching Alex bleed out on the arena in that bullfight, falling victim of their decisions, to save gold and green, to lift the country on his shoulders, even though he’s thinking of home, always worried about home now, the images of hell on earth haunting him at every waking hour, even then, the dragon weeps inside: _but he’s mine._

*

And so he is. The Australian Open draw gets released and Nadal is there, at the end of the road for him, waiting, calling for him, the fate’s sign, the seal of togetherness Nick still feels underneath his skin in the form of warm fingerprints shaping him into what drives him, who he is.

Nick doesn’t even think past any other round. There’s plenty of motivation in him, sure. He’s redefined tennis, it’s a source of possibilities to make his life meaningful, by being for others (in team tournaments) or saving others (in charity). Tennis becomes a job, becomes a mission.

But tennis is the path of destiny to be with _him_ in that turmoil of wants and yearnings, missed or fulfilled, neither or both. Tennis is their arena, where they leave marks on each other, but tennis is the aisle, too, where they renew the vows of strange kind of intimacy and inevitable.

So, he’s playing for the country, for home, playing for himself, to prove things to himself, to grow, to become, but mostly playing to get there, to that finish line, where _he_ will be, waiting, like Nick is, what feels like his entire life, waiting so that they could meet again. So that he could remember the reasons and carry the reasons and cherish the reasons why he is doing this to begin with.

And so, armed with this motivation, fueled with it inside, his heart pumping wild, relentless, he almost bleeds out on the way. Gets scars on this battlefield, scars that are not from him, scars that are _for_ him. He will be showing them as badges of honour. The blood he drew for him, the scratches that say: _I belong with him._

But nothing can stop him from getting there.

He plays his first 5 sets to do so. His body like hijacked, the dragon inside fully awakened to steer them over these stormy waters, to lead them to the place where the bull awaits in the clash of destiny (where the home is). He’s hurting everywhere, like crawling through thorns, in the darkness, a stranger in the strange land, seeking the sun, seeking release (where the bull is waiting, where the warmth and familiar is). He plays his longest match to be there (to get back home) and there are moments along the way he thinks he won’t make it. The dragon falters, the voices try to tear him apart, shadows of doubts, black, slimy creature of insecurities spitting on him with contempt.

He remembers why, then. He thinks of home, thinks of the lives he hopes people can rebuilt and thinks of _him_. At the end of the road. Waiting.

When he falls on court, to the umpire’s voice announcing his victory like from the distance, like he’s on a different plane of existence, soaring in the sky, detached from himself, the aches on his body now muffled, the soul inside him light and full, he replies, in his heart, a promise, that never changes, that always remains: _I’m coming. I’m coming home to you._

@

The night after he dreams of something soft and loving. Arms shielding him, healing him, putting him together, so that he could be strong and ready again. He dreams of intimacy in violence. There are lips in his hair, kissing. Body, steel and muscles, pulling him close so that he could melt into it. He does. He clings to more, with his hands mapping the skin, learning it by heart, knowing it’s going to slip away, knowing this can’t be. It’s not really his to have and to keep.

The voice says to his ear, but he hears it in his heart. “I’m so proud of you.”

He heard it from his parents, from his family, from the team. He heard it from himself, too. After the match, during it. It wheeled him over the finish line.

But it never mattered more than it does now. The words are lips kissing him and the arms holding him, mending him and the body wrapped around him like they are one.

Like he’s home. Like he’s where was supposed to be his entire life.

He wakes up with an ache burning bright and fresh in him. A resolve freshly ignited.

_I’m coming. I’m coming home to you._

His heart beats, stable and safe.

@

Lleyton offers a training session. More like analyzing stats, talking strategies. There’s tentative trust between them. He doesn’t treat Nick like he does Alex. There is no awe underlined with affection, there is no respect consolidated with similarities and understanding. There’s moving past the differences, learning to let go of those and work together on goals that they do share.

And he’s there for Nick. For better or for worse. He’s there. Patient and supporting. He stays through the ugly, through hard, through angry and negative. And Nick knows how much it costs him. And Nick appreciates it, gets the gravity of it.

But Nick knows exactly what he is supposed to do. And the flame incited in him flickers perpetually. This is what he tells him.

“I know exactly how to play him. I know exactly what to do. But thanks, mate.”

He means something else. He means something so much more.

 _I know him. I’ve known him my entire tennis life._ And it doesn’t really matter what happens afterwards. The fact he got to the finish line, the fact, he is coming home, does.

@

Home feels like sweat, blood boiling in his veins, fire burning in his soul. Home hurts his body, marks his skin. Home is anger and frustration, adrenaline and thrill, too. Home is violence and ashes. His roars of desperation, his shouts of fury.

But in this he feels alive. Filled with clarity. Like he wasn’t supposed to be doing anything else in his life but this.

Chase Nadal. Run after him. Almost catch him. Almost have him.

In this almost he reaches the heights, he gets to the deepest core of himself and he becomes the best version of himself.

And home feels like he’s made of body that can, that is infinite, that soars into impossible. Home feels like he wants to try, he’s full of will, and he’s strong and capable.

And home feels like he knows himself and he belongs, like he’s never had before.

He wants them to stay here longer. More. He doesn’t know when’s the next time. He wants them to play 5 sets. He doesn’t care about the result. Playing him, meeting him across the court is win enough to him.

But it’s not meant to be. They are on borrowed time. Always. Even if he takes the most out of it, learns by heart his movement, his sounds, his smell. The touch of his hand across the net, eyes speaking of acknowledgement and respect. He disappears into the hall of the fallen, Australia’s-hero-that-never-was but feels full, feels anchored, feels at home. Not like a castaway anymore. No.

A hero of his own.

The dragon in him is peaceful. Sated.

They are one.

@

He doesn’t hear him come in.

He stands by the lockers, shirt taken off. He’s wet, he’s shattered, only now he feels the effects on body their clashes always have (he basks in the aches, it’s raw, it’s physical, it’s being claimed by him). There are new scratches on his hand and his forearm he traces with his fingers reverently (now, visible, now, no longer figment of dragon’s hunger). He breathes in, he breathes out, being _his_ , belonging. The scales on his skin no longer feel foreign. Like transformation is complete.

“Are there marks?” he turns around to see Nadal by the door. Déjà vu. Like then. But it’s no longer about hunting down. It’s no longer about chasing the truth.

It’s about speaking it out loud.

“They never go away,” he replies, facing Nadal, even though there’s space between them that feels like it stretches for miles.

Nadal is in his sweatshirt and a cap. Packed and ready to move on. To go into showers, to cleanse himself off what happened here. Nick whines inside. He still wears the sweat and markings this match left on him. He still wears _him_ like that.

He doesn’t want Nadal to lose it just yet. _Please._ They are on borrowed time anyway.

“Good match,” he says, and it’s not generic, it’s not for anyone. He looks as shattered. He looks as claimed. Nick took a part of him out there. And Nick is taking it with himself. And Nadal knows it.

“Like our every match is,” it used to be about the chase. Now it’s about winning the keeps. Nick waits for him to cover the distance. To stop running.

“Sorry you’re going home,” this sounds like something formulaic, like he’s not entirely ready to speak the truth out loud. And he doesn’t move.

“No, you’re not,” Nick smirks, like beckoning him closer, closer to the truth and continues. Open and unapologetic. “And I am home,” it’s about this slam. It’s about this place. And it’s about playing him.

Nadal is moving. Putting down his bags and getting himself closer. Nick waits. Like he’s been waiting for him. Like he always will. “You’re bleeding. Let me,” and he takes the towel from a bench and reaches for Nick’s hand to nurse his wounds. Like it’s not the most intimate gesture they shared. Like it doesn’t shatter Nick to pieces more than the tennis they played did.

“Good. I want to feel it, “ he always does. He’s daring enough. Even if it hurts. Impossibility of keeping this does.

The act brings them even closer. Nick can see Nadal’s freckles. The focus on his face as he touches his skin, as he tends to him like Nick’s important, like Nick’s something dear, reminds Nick of the way he concentrates on his routines on court, traces the strings on his racket, fixates on his water bottles. Skin to skin contact makes him realise how everything he was chasing after, all the replacement, all the fulfillment with bodies, with closeness of others, will never ever compare.

The dragon whimpers inside him and he’s not quick enough to stop the sound from coming on his mouth.

Nadal stops. Like brought back to reality. Aware of how bare with the truth they are now with each other. “Nick…” is all he says. Letting go ( _no, no, no_ ) and looking down, resigned. But the sound of his name spoken like that, like Rafa, yes, Rafa understands, knows exactly what these marks are about, is enough for Nick to feel safe in this truth. Because with him.

The truth of their _what ifs_. The truth of their _in another lifetime_.

Nick absolves him from suffering it too much. “It doesn’t matter. I want my first final here to be with you anyway. Even if this felt like one, too,” their hands are close enough for Nick to brush his knuckles. For a moment. Just for a moment. God.

“Yes, it felt like that. You took a lot from me, Nick,” Rafa lets him and Rafa responds and looks up now, into Nick’s eyes. Speaking the truth out loud. Addressing it. Confessing.

“Good. We’re even, then,” Nick says. It sounds so quiet. Their secret. Their promise. But it’s mutual this time. Up to now it always felt like Rafa was stealing from him, robbing him off himself. But now he gives his part in return. Now they both carry pieces of each other inside themselves. As it should be. Maybe it will be enough to fill up the void this time.

“They asked me if I like you as a person,” Rafa smiles, his eyes shine so warm. Nick basks. Nick commits it to memory. Their hands are no longer touching and he knows the void will remain oozing emptiness, felt and physical. But he can keep the scraps. Build illusion from them for later. To endure separation in pretences.

“Yeah, same here,” he manages to chuckle back. Seemingly lightly. Sharing a joke with a friend. Someone being part of his life. “What did you say?” this truth he doesn’t want to hear, but maybe he needs to not to disappear in this disillusion entirely.

“That I don’t know you as a person.”

This is that space in between now and what if. Who they could be for each other. Who they could be in each other’s lives. That space they will never occupy. Taste, feel, know.

“Yeah. I said the same,” they look at each other, in a silence that stretches. Understanding what does it mean. Understanding borrowed time and lifetimes never lived. “That’s okay. This is enough. Yeah?” he lies, nodding, deluding himself, pleading for it to be enough of a shield protecting him from the void inside to consume him.

This is all they have. Or maybe enough that they have. Their tennis. These clashes. All-consuming, shaping, changing them, leaving marks forever. Taking away their piece by piece so that they are carrying puzzles of each other deep inside.

_You will never be whole, you will never be entirely yourself without me._

Rafa can go back to his soft and domestic, but he will always hunt the dragon on court with Nick. And Nick can seek out replacement and pretences but this, here, right now, and out there, hunting him, is where he truly feels himself.

“It must be,” Rafa doesn’t have confirmation for him. He sounds like he’s imploring too. But there’s his hand, on Nick’s arm, renewing the fingerprints, that seal of belonging, Nick will always feel there. “See you in the final then, Nick,” a breath follows, close, like a kiss, a goodbye one. Not for long. _Please, not for long._

Nick chases the sensation, but Rafa is moving away, turning back, heading for the shower stalls, and with his absence, the void inside Nick grows terrifying.

“Be there,” Nick says after him, hopes Rafa can hear, hopes Rafa can deliver. “Just, be there,” because they are on borrowed time and what will happen if they don’t have tennis anymore. What will happen with the absence then?

How he will shield himself from the void then?

*

When he watches Rafa disappear into the same halls 2 days after, after losing his match, after falling out of the tournament, there’s strange kind of reassurance. Their truth, written on his skin with his fingerprints, engraved in his heart with dragon purring there in peace, in confirmation.

_See? Now you know._

_You’re mine._

The marks he left on Rafa are not visible on the outside. But they are there. Under his skin and they say.

_You’re mine._

**Author's Note:**

> This kind of goes together with /Like It Happened, Like It Will/ except I tried to keep it as canon relevant as possible so they are not in fact fucking here, because no matter how obsessive my little heart can get, they don't in reality, lol no shit Sherlock. It's Nick's POV on all their meetings and everything that might have come in between, just like there, it's Rafa's. 
> 
> /And If I only could I'd make a deal with God and I'd get him to swap our places/ is also relevant to this fic, as this one continues the same lame, animals metaphors I used there and well, picks up after that one at some point, too. Plus, digs deeper into Nick's motivation at the beginning of this season.


End file.
